Does George Osborne’s claim stand up to analysis?
Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA

In his PMQs debut, the chancellor, George Osborne, said the UK is home to 1% of the world’s population, has 4% of world GDP, but has 7% of global welfare spend.

As my colleague Andrew Sparrow pointed out, the quote is most probably the British version of one of German chancellor Angela Merkel’s favourite sayings, which goes: “Europe has 7% of the world’s population, 25% of its wealth, 50% of its welfare spending.”

Is it true?

The first two claims are simple to verify – the UK is in fact home to nearly 1% of the world’s population and comprises just under 4% of global GDP.

As with Merkel’s claim, verifying Osborne’s welfare spending figure is more complicated.

A second area of possible confusion when looking at all this is how welfare spending is actually defined, and then compared between countries.

Total social protection spending (which is the definition used in the World Bank report) in the UK amounts to about £250bn a year (36% of its public spending), according to FullFact. It includes what is paid out in benefits, pensions and tax credits, but also the cost to administer all these and the cost of personal social services, such as social care for the elderly.

A narrower definition of welfare, say, the amount paid out for benefits and pensions, amounts to £183bn (26% of public spending). On top of that, £30bn is paid out in tax credits each year by HMRC.

The ‘unlawful’ delay of the personal independence payment (Pip) for disabled people is just the latest in a dismal list of benefit reform failures. Don’t expect it to get better or an apology from the contemptuous government department